Resettlement/Housing Program

Breaking Free from Homelessness

In the dormitory at Good Shepherd Centre, you might meet:

• A 21-year-old who has come to Toronto looking for work, but who has no friends or family in the city. His meagre savings haven’t lasted long.
• A 69-year-old with Alzheimer’s who has taken the bus from Vancouver to Toronto. He isn’t sure where he was living before he got on the bus, and he doesn’t seem to have any family looking for him.
• A 44-year-old whose alcoholism cost him his job and his apartment. His friends are tired of putting him up on their couch. His mom, who used to take him in when he got in trouble, has recently passed away.

These men share the need to find safe, affordable housing.

But each of them has his own reason for being homeless. Each of them needs housing that meets his specific needs. Each of them must also find solutions for problems that are contributing to his homelessness: health problems, lack of social support, addiction.

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Resettlement/Housing Program

Good Shepherd Centre’s Resettlement/Housing Program works one-on-one with homeless men, helping them to find and keep suitable housing. Modelled after a successful program founded by the Little Brothers of the Good Shepherd in England, the Program has operated since March 1996.

Since establishing itself, the Resettlement Program has grown from one staff member to five.

Resettlement housing workers do much more than just find housing for their clients. They help each client to develop a plan to cope with other problems. Housing workers help clients to get health care, to solve immigration problems, to connect to social assistance, to replace lost ID.

Most clients are placed with private landlords. Resettlement workers keep in touch with landlords so that problems can be fixed at an early stage, before the client finds himself homeless again.

To use the Resettlement Program, clients must be over the age of 18 and be staying overnight at Good Shepherd Centre. Clients who are involved in this program are offered an extended stay while working with housing workers and counsellors.

In 2009, the Program helped 176 homeless individuals find and retain housing.

Interested parties, please contact 416-869-3619 or .

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